Saturday, February 27, 2016

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a
salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing
aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern
shopping mall.

Director:Zack Snyder

Writers:George A. Romero, James Gunn (screenplay)

Stars:Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer|
See full cast & crew

Storyline

Ana goes home to her peaceful suburban residence, but she is
unpleasantly surprised the morning that follows when her husband is
brutally attacked by her zombified neighbor. In the chaos of her once
picturesque neighborhood, Ana flees and stumbles upon a police officer
named Kenneth, along with more survivors who decide that their best
chances of survival would be found in the deserted Crossroads Shopping
Mall. When supplies begin running low and other trapped survivors need
help, the group comes to the realization that they cannot stay put
forever at the Shopping Mall, and devise a plan to escape.

Dawn of the Dead Reviews..

Returning from a busy
day in the hospital, Ana spends time with her husband when a neighbours
daughter comes into the house and attacks her husband. He dies before
returning to life and attacking Ana. She runs and escapes in her car,
driving through a neighbourhood rife with violence and fires. After
crashing her car, she hooks up with a group of armed survivors who take
refuge in a mall. The group settle in and fortify their position as an
army of the undead gather outside.

Before I start my review, let
me just say that this will be biased as I am always easily won over by
zombie movies. The fact that they just keep coming (fast or slow), lack
character and only want to kill really just freaks me out. So I tend
to get easily scared by the genre (even if `enjoy' is perhaps not the
right word) and be easily more negligent towards their faults. Despite
telling myself that I wouldn't bother with this film as it would scare
me, I went for it anyway in a fit of `confront your fears' type of
stupidity! The film starts with a creepy opening and pretty much
manages to keep the pace up for the whole film. It, like the zombies,
moves fast and brutally throughout and is very, very tense.

Others
have complained about the lack of gore - however I found the graphic
exploding heads to do that more than enough for my tastes! Better than
gore is the atmosphere. The use of news footage is not original but it
succeeds (along with the aerial view of the town) in creating the
impression of a world turning to sh*t. I don't know about you but this
scares me and the film did it well. The speed of the zombie attacks
makes for a thrilling ride and it did make me very tense - Snyder
managed to make the whole film a threat (especially for a first time
director) and I honestly have a very stiff neck a day after seeing this
simply because my body was tensed up for the whole film!

The pace
of the film also serves to cover the real problems in content and plot.
Unlike the original there is no satirical swipe on consumerism - the
fact that the zombies are just wandering aimlessly around the mall like
they used to in life is pretty much ignored here - but times are very
different now I guess. The plot itself also has quite a few stupid
moments where the characters act in a way you know they wouldn't in real
life. For example people go on suicide missions for little real
reasons and you can tell that the script is just doing it to create more
action. However, when you are into it, these things don't really seem
to matter. The film may be a little silly when you think about it but
it does have a good ending - downbeat and realistic (or at least as
realistic as it can be!) and left me with no hope of a happy ending - in
this regard it is everything that `28 Days Later..' is not.

The
cast is good even if the script places their characters secondary to the
action. Polley is used to slightly more substantial roles but still
does well here. Rhames is lumbered with a religious background that is
never explained, but he is a great presence throughout. Weber is the
standout role however. His character is a slightly less cartoon version
of Evil Dead's Ash. He is the unwilling hero but yet he seems to
accept all the obstacles he comes across. He also manages to be one of
the group that the audience cares about - most of them are fodder and we
know it! Phifer is a good actor but seemed too `gangster' to really be
driven to this degree by his family. The rest of the support cast are
mostly just there to get eaten but they do OK.

Overall this is
not a great film - but it is an effective one. As a film it lacks
subtext, comment and plot logic. However as a thriller it is fast paced,
gripping and tense with a satisfyingly bleak conclusion. Snyder does a
good job as a first timer and creates an atmosphere that is gripping
even if it lacks originality. Like I said, I don't deal with zombie
movies very well and am easily scared but I reckon that this should
satisfy many a Saturday night thrill-seeking crowd even if it does
nothing for your brain apart from it's risk getting eaten.